


Rarely That Lazy

by InnerSpectrum



Series: Mystrade is Our Division Prompts [82]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Established Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade, Facebook: Mystrade is our Division Fic Prompts, Mystrade is Our Division Prompts, Serendipity - Freeform, mystrade
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24878599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InnerSpectrum/pseuds/InnerSpectrum
Summary: The universe reminds Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade who is in charge.
Relationships: Mycroft Holmes/Greg Lestrade
Series: Mystrade is Our Division Prompts [82]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1090899
Comments: 20
Kudos: 112





	Rarely That Lazy

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Mystrade is our Division FB Fic Prompts: Charge

Detective Inspector Gregory Lestrade was having a shite few days.

Utter shite.

As in he and Donovan had just left their third murder-suicide in as many days - _shite_.

Observations confirmed by Sherlock, who was being an utter shite, that they were connected - it was a serial - _shite_.

His car was side swiped by a driver high off his tits - _shite_.

Got cut deep on his arm before Greg could subdue the driver - _shite_.

While at the hospital with Donovan he arrested a mother due to Munchausen by Proxy, but not before the child could be saved - _shite_.

The chief ALL down his throat - _shite_.

And to top it all off Mycroft was out of town and not due back for another couple of days – _complete and utter_ _SHITE_.

Lestrade generally kept a solid disposition about him, always in charge, but not today.

His feelings of being in charge these past couple of days was just feeling like, well – shite.

He was really just mad at life, mad at the world, mad at all the shite.

He needed to put some distance between his heart and his work for his own peace of mind for a moment.

He needed a take charge superhero moment and just the thought of that seemed to ease him a little already.

> Years ago, when he used to do weekly volunteering with a youth services group; he was in a most foul mood. It was when he found out about his wife cheating _yet_ _again_. It was the straw that finally and completely broke his heart. It was days after he filed for divorce and saying he had been down in the dumps was putting it lightly. One of the youth counselors at the center, Danny, had noticed his mood and wordlessly slipped a folded index card into his pocket.
> 
> On the old index card was a drawing. The card itself was so old that it had broken in two from having been folded and carried around for years. At some point it had been laminated to keep the two pieces together, but even the fold in the lamination was old. It was obviously something that had been treasured by the counselor. Something that had just been silently given to Greg when he needed it most. Even then, as depressed as he was, Greg felt the onus of having been the recipient of a heartfelt pay-it-forward moment and knew it would be an insult to return it. It was weeks later when Greg finally asked the counselor about it.
> 
> “When I was fourteen, my parents were going through a messy divorce. Messyyyyyyyyy divorce. Not the clean way you quickly severed your ties with your ex. It was a bad time for a long time. I had gone to an ice cream shop one day, trying to make myself feel better with food therapy, you know? Next thing I knew I was sitting at the counter crying into my sundae. Here I am this big teen boy with tears falling into this melting ice cream and feeling all the more lost because it felt like everyone saw me losing it, yet everyone ignored me. In fact, this one guy that was one seat away from me had got up and moved a few seats over to distance himself from me, you know. I was misery, but nobody was up to be my company, I guess.” 
> 
> Greg could tell Danny still felt the pains of that moment even all these years later by the sorrow that flashed in the counselor’s eyes as he continued.
> 
> “Except this one bloke. Business looking bloke, not much older than me. I really wish I could remember him better, but I was too ashamed to really look at him. He was sitting with a seat between us when I started crying in earnest. He simply pulled this index card out and started sketching on it. He then slipped it to me, patted me on the arm and left. He never said a word to me, mind you, but with this card, this stranger had said everything I needed to hear then. He alone closed the distance I felt from the world that day. In a way he inspired me to become a counselor, so I can listen to kids even when they feel they don’t have a voice to be heard. I had always held on to it with the dream that someday I’d meet that guy again one day and be able to tell him how much it helped. But you look like you needed it more that day – it felt right in my heart for you to have it.”
> 
> Danny was correct, it was exactly what his soul had needed at that moment. Greg thanked Danny from the heart and kept it.

And because by then Greg had regular associations with a certain consulting detective who liked to pick his pockets just to take the piss, Greg was afraid of losing it. So, he kept it in an envelope in his desk for days when the world seemed out to remind him who’s in charge and it was not him. For days when he needed the inspiration.

For shite days like this.

Greg fished the index card out of its protective envelope and smiled.

It was drawing of a superhero and a policeman. On the first half of the card, the superhero and bobby sat on a ledge of a building under a pouring rain cloud looking dejected.

They looked like he felt.

On the other half of the card, was the same superhero and bobby. Only now both stood on the same ledge in a classic standing superhero pose, looking determined. In boxy precise writing underneath the appropriate drawing was a caption.

_Even the good guys get down in the dumps… but eventually they rise again and so will you._

Greg looked at the card and sighed, his soul just that more lighter for the reminder. He remembered Danny had once told him he thought the bobby in the sketch looked a little like Greg, who laughed at the time. He contemplated the random act of kindness that placed it in his possession. It was enough to remind him that yes, today, in fact the past few days, were not stellar ones for the record books, but they weren’t all going to be crap and he had better ones coming ahead. Greg was so focused on the card he did not hear when Mycroft stepped into his office but heard the man’s soft surprised gasp.

Greg’s heart warmed recognizing the voice. It belonged to the other thing he needed just then, his husband surprising him by arriving early from his business trip.

And just like that the absolutely shite day was suddenly the most wonderful.

He was beginning to feel he could conquer anything, back in charge again.

Greg looked up with a grin until he saw the quirked brow of genuine surprise on his husband’s face.

“Mycroft?”

“Where did you get that?” Mycroft stared at the laminated card in Greg’s hand. “On the left bottom of that card, under your thumb, is there…is there a spy glass?”

Greg blinked. He knew the answer without looking down.

He remembered, just then, the very first time Mycroft had taken him to his childhood home to meet his parents. His mother had shown him some of Mycroft’s old drawings. Each signed with a spy glass because even as a child he was looking everywhere he shouldn’t be she had joked. He and Mycroft were barely associating when he first received the index card and it was the furthest thing from his mind when he saw Mycroft’s drawings years later.

Oh, how the universe enjoys reminding mere mortals who is really in charge. Rarely that lazy indeed.

“Myc, when was the _very first time_ you laid eyes on me?”

He knew Mycroft understood the emphasis when he scratched at his eyebrow with his right-hand ring finger. It was a slight tell of his being embarrassed at an unexpected warm emotion as he effortlessly rolled out a date, time, and street intersection. An intersection that was once a part of the neighborhood Greg worked when he was a street cop, a long time ago.

“It was years before I met you again, Gregory. You were just an officer I saw dressing down some street hoodlum who needed it. I walked past you, but your attention was on the young hooligan as it should have been. In fact, I had not put it together that it was in fact you until you mentioned your beat cop days in a conversation at dinner not long after we met. We were not anywhere near a point of friendship where I would have ever admitted I had thus immortalized you, but yes, love, you were the inspiration for the officer when I sketched it for that kid a few days later. To this day I do not know why I did that – reached out to him. He just looked so young to be so lost.”

“Universe taking charge is a beautiful thing sometimes.” Greg rose from his chair, walked over to Mycroft and gave him a heartfelt kiss. “You are magical.”

“True.” Mycroft’s eyes crinkled in amusement “But how so this time…?”

“You’re coming with me someplace this afternoon.”

“Oh? Am I now?”

“Yes, you are.”

“You’re just going to take charge of my afternoon as such?”

“Yes. You came straight from Heathrow to me. I know you want to see me as badly as I am glad to see you. Come with me and after one stop on our way home there’s only one other thing I will want you to do.”

“And what is that?”

Greg eyed him over until Mycroft grinned at the heated look Greg gave him.

“ _Come_ _with me_.”

"Oh my." Mycroft visibly swallowed in anticipation.

Greg grinned as he picked up his office phone and dialed. 

“Hey Danny, Greg here. You at the center today?... You are…? Excellent! See you in an hour, because mate do I have a SURPRISE for you!”


End file.
